NHS dentistry is rotting. Will the plan to fix it work?

NHS dentistry is rotting. Will the plan to fix it work? 2 hours ago Share Save Jim Reed Health reporter Share Save As queues go, this one was impressive. It started on a quiet residential side street, then turned left past a giant blue mural before snaking 100m down the main road to the doors of a new dental practice. Carol Sherman, a local artist, was second in line when the doors opened back in 2024. "I was that desperate, I put some chairs and blankets in the car and got there at five in the morning," she says. "So many people round here can't get a dentist… so it's been an absolute lifesaver." Three times in the last two years, hundreds of people in Bristol have been forced to queue for hours just to register with a NHS dentist in the city. Other parts of the country face the same situation. In both England and Wales changes are about to come into force meant to make it easier to access dental treatment on the NHS. "Without fundamental change, NHS dentistry will remain a service that has gone for good in many parts of the country," says Mark Dayan, an analyst at the Nuffield Trust, a health think tank. "At this stage, it's just unhelpful to pretend there is still some kind of comprehensive system in place." But will the reforms, which the government is calling the most significant in 20 years, be enough to save a system that has not been working for millions of patients? The race for appointments Back in 1948 when Labour's Aneurin Bevan founded the NHS, dental care became free alongside hospitals and GPs. But the country's teeth were in an appalling state after World War Two and pent-up demand was much greater than politicians anticipated. To keep a lid on costs, the first routine charges (of £1) for NHS dental work were quickly introduced, alongside fees for prescriptions and glasses. Bevan, by then minister of Labour, resigned in protest. From the earliest days, that decision to charge patients set dentistry apart from almost every area of the health service. ...